Unique Soviet hand-made, which is no longer made today

Do you remember houses made of matches, boxes made of postcards, flowerpots made of records? All this was created by hand from improvised materials, carefully and with love. Instructions were carefully copied or passed from mouth to mouth, new ideas and methods of recycling old and unnecessary things were born.

Yes, in the USSR the concept of recycling appeared even before it became mainstream. If you do not understand the last sentence, then you are probably already brushing off a treacherously running tear and reaching for the mezzanine in search of neatly hidden crafts.

If your “treasures from the past” have long disappeared in the labyrinths of history, it doesn’t matter. We dedicated a whole collection to them in order to remember everything and get nostalgic with you.

Matchbox houses

Houses, palaces and even entire villages made of matches. I always admired them when I came to visit friends and acquaintances. Neither I nor my parents knew how to do this, but I always dreamed of such a souvenir.

According to the craftsmen, it took only 2 boxes of matches to make a small house and very little time. More fundamental structures already required much more time and material, but such a product could serve as a good gift or surprise for loved ones.

Postcard boxes

This incredible work could be mastered only by the most skilled craftswomen. As it turned out, I did not belong to their number, but I was lucky to receive a similar craft as a gift.

Bright, colorful, and as they would say today – very environmentally friendly. Such caskets can be timed to coincide with any holiday and give for any special occasions. And a person was congratulated with a postcard, and a useful thing was presented. After all, threads, jewelry and other little things were usually stored in such caskets. The frame for the product was made of cardboard, and then neatly sheathed with a variety of pictures.

Postcard curtains

Postcards are generally a universal option. Which of them just did not come up with! For example, from thinly cut into strips of postcards and ordinary paper clips, bright curtains were obtained.

You just need to twist the strip into a tube, place a paper clip in it and attach it to the same paper clip wrapped in a paper tube. Such curtains were usually hung on doorways and they rustled pleasantly when touched.

Another option – curtains only from postcards. The cut parts were folded in the form of corners, and then connected together like puzzles.

Sailboat in a bottle

It’s a riddle I’ve never been able to solve: how does a sailboat get into a bottle? It turns out that this type of applied art is already more than 500 years old, and sailors were the first to put ships in bottles. During long-term voyages, they made wooden sailboats, and then disassembled into parts and carefully transferred the bottles inside.

For work, special tools were used, as well as bottles with a wide neck. The fragments were glued together with a syringe. This technology has survived to this day, and bottled sailboats do not lose their popularity.

Crafts from vinyl records

Another versatile and practical material is old music records. They didn’t make anything from them: pots for indoor plants, and clocks, and wall panels, and decorative plates for fruits.

The material is affordable and durable, the idea is simple and reliable, like a Swiss watch. Only a million times cheaper.

By the way, crafts from vinyl records are still being created today. For example, in the hand-made market, plate jewelry is very popular – earrings, pendants, pendants. And the fashion for gramophones and vinyl players is back again. Such vintage items are valued not only among collectors and lovers of antiquity. I know a couple of aesthetes who love to listen to music on records – it’s very atmospheric and beautiful.

Wire products

The girls had rings and bracelets, while the boys had horses, ships, riders and soldiers. Such products developed imagination and fine motor skills, were a real storehouse of ideas for play and creativity. Where are those modern gadgets and expensive toys that break quickly. You try to break the Soviet copper wire!